How'd it go today?

[MasterBlaster]

RIP Masanori Minami!

 

[brendonv]

Rainy day, couldn't do resi tree work.

Started in the woods again, alone, peaceful, deer jumping and trees'a'falling.

 

[cory]

Wtf you lucky bastid?? Whose skidder? Just cutting and skidding all day?? Dayum, some guys have all the luck.

 

[brendonv]

Haha,

Harlan has two skidders and a forwarder to feed his firewood processor. He buys the wood from the water company, like $10 per cord. Acres upon acres about 10-15 miles from my casa. This is a new area we are going to work on this winter. I gotta take pics of how the last area looks, the forester really did an amazing job picking out trees. In those woods there is an old Indian burial ground, he says its pretty neat.

I started cutting today, and played around with the skidder a bit trying to relearn it. Come up for a hike anytime!

 

[brendonv]

I lost a saw today, within 100 yards of my driveway.

I did a small take down for my neighbor, second tree of the day. I musta put the saw on the deck of the bucket truck. I drove from a dead end to my driveway, no more than 10mph. Walked back to meet my help who was leaf blowing. I saw my air filter cover and air filter on the road and said "shit". Within the less than 5 minutes it took for me to go from there to here, someone grabbed the saw on this dead end street, with only one residential house on it. I went down the road to a garage that's down there and asked if they had any delivers in the last 15 minutes. He said no.

Lame.

Thank god it was only the 201. It's got no air filter or cover now, and my name inscribed all over it with one of those etcher machines. Did they really not see the tree guy leaf blowing the area with a tree truck with woodchips in the back? Scumbags, though I shouldn't of forgotten about it.

Time to put my other old 200t to work. I can't bring myself to open up the new one!

 

[cory]

Hike, schmike, lemme at that JD!!

Bummer on the saw, the storm must have dirtbags extra hot for saws. As I mentioned to you, I lost 7 plus a blower and hedge trimmer outta the bucket last week

 

[MasterBlaster]

That sucks, Brendon... and I've been through exactly the same thing!

 

[rangerdanger]

That blows man!

Just checking in right now. At the moment I'm in Sulphur, LA working with a good friend. Been here since the 1st of December. Great times, doing crane work, running a lift, climbing some great live oaks, and eating some awesome food!

 

[woodworkingboy]

That sucks, Brendon. It dumbfounds that some people have never learned even the simplest of lessons of life.

 

[HolmenTree]

Yeah that sucks, I lost only 2 saws in my whole life.....both run over by a skidder. Best one was a brand new Stihl 064 that I bored into a standing tree about 4 ft off the ground and walked in for lunch. After lunch my skidder operator when back to work and not seeing the saw smashed it right out of the tree.......b/c still in the tree, saw all smashed up on the ground.

Well it was minus -40 below this morning with a light wind chill.....I just put my equipment away for now, will bring it out again next March.

 

[woodworkingboy]

We had a job at an unoccupied vacation home that was going to be rebuilt. The crane operator left his 020 sitting down the street aways near the curb, and nobody noticed it when we left. Gone the next day, some cool person had turned it into the cops. The station is quite a distance off too.

 

[Underwor]

We had a saw walk off a couple years ago. The fellow tried to sell it to one of the fellows where we buy gas. When he asked about the Minot Park Stickers all over it, the fellow just left it and drove away.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Sorry to hear about your misfortune Brendon... I have been lucky so far... Only ran over a couple of Huskys
One time... the gate on my trailer cut loose and and the only reason I knew it was I heard the pole saw dragging and stopped.. Found all the saw and gear with the exception of one full gas can. Amazing that was all they got. Probably just did not see the saws over the edge of the road.

 

[PCTREE]

Did a very dead pine TD today with a crane. My groundy was chipping the first pice of brush for the day and the chipper flung out a 3" x 6" piece of wood which got him in the mouth and rang his bell a bit. He needed 4 stitches on the outside of lip and 3 inside Wife came and took him to "prompt care" and me and the crane guy finished the whole job. Gotta be careful as that stuff comes outa nowhere...

So thankful it didnt get him in the eye.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

OUCH!

 

[SouthSoundTree]

That sucks, B, much moreso, Cory. Hope he mends quickly, Paul.


A big, maybe 44" cottonwood blew up last week at a park, so my super and I went there to do VTAs and resistographing a bunch of other medium to big cottonwoods in the same very wet, very highly used area. Looks like we are going to be in for a mud fest in February. Might get to run a track hoe, which I never have. We will be taking out a lot of big cottonwoods and a few smaller ash. Back when, over 20 years ago, these cottonwoods were topped, as was the conventional wisdom at the time. This was the first time I've been up there with the leaves off, and possibly the same for my super, so we didn't know about the old topping.

A warning shot with no casualties. A big wake up call for the manager, who had not hear about these CWs when he was told about them before. The 44" one had a 3-4" shell, and completely hollow inside. Stretch a skin over it and bang out some beats, 'cause yes, there are some sound holes at the bottom. If you don't look for problems, you don't see problems.

 

[woodworkingboy]

Thanks for the thoughts on the death of the good friend of mine. A tiresome trip, but I am real glad that I went. It was a very nice funeral, as far as funerals go. At the last part, they brought out his coffin into the center of the room and removed the lid. People could lay a flower in it and have their final moments with him before his body was taken for cremation. I tried to comfort his daughter, she was weeping quite bitterly. I guess there must have been at least three hundred people there, the guy was well known and liked. Some people said a few words, are asked to, giving their remembrances or partings to the deceased. I would have liked to, but it was unclear if i could attend, and things had all been set up. I would have thanked him for his friendship, expressed my remorse that the world is a less satisfying place now without his presence, and maybe tried to add a bit of humor. We used to joke around a lot. I keep seeing his dead face, the look of nothingness, but there was also the hint of expression that he didn't want to go. I feel quite saddened. There are some people that you may meet in the world that have something beyond the common measure. For me, he was definitely one of them. However it works, I sure hope I may somehow see him again.

 

[MasterBlaster]

I don't do funerals, period. They do nothing for the dead. No funeral for me - I'll be buried in a pauper's grave.

I don't GAS.

 

[woodworkingboy]

Each to their own. I went primarily because his wife asked me to make it if I possibly could, though it meant up and back 16 hours on a bus. I hoped to offer some comfort, and I tried. My friend's young granddaughter was there, and without registering an opinion, I know that sometimes people in such a sudden situation can't exactly think straight about how such events might be shocking to children. As her mother wept, she stood there next to the coffin, transfixed staring at the dead body. I brushed back the little girl's hair and told her that everything was alright. She shook her head, really a bright and beautiful little girl. Anyway, i was glad i went, if only to possibly help out a bit. Hell, that child's father was there too, but he wasn't around at that moment, I don't know where. Some folks can grab the reins, some can't.

 

[SouthSoundTree]

It a service to the family to be there for support. Attending sometimes help one to reflect on what the person meant to one's self, as well as gain an appreciation for the person from interacting with other friends and loved ones of the deceased.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Children shouldn't attend funerals, IMO. They don't know anything about life or death, as well it should be. That's adult activity.

 

[SouthSoundTree]

One of those days where we didn't work very hard, but would have liked to have felt more productive, yet I'm not tired out at the end of the day. Maintenance/ testing on the skidder a bit for some upcoming work, researched some equipment a little bit, Fecon forestry mulcher (anybody know anything) and the unicorn splitter for making cedar fence rails out of logs, paper work, supply shopping and scheduling. 'Researching' on TH/ TB.

Tomorrow we'll go on a felling spree at a park I haven't been to, earning our keep. Left to other staff, it would take 2-3 times as long, at least, and maybe not get all done due to the dangerous nature of it. I guess its okay if we don't kill ourselves everyday. Some individual parks have staff that can knock down some good stuff and prune some deadwood and such, but most can barely run an 029 (the typical park saw), much less an 088 off a springboard.

I almost got creamed on Monday by a 4"x 20' limb coming down from around 100' the other day. Dodging it by a couple feet, after being grazed by another similar one on the leg, slightly. I figured I earned my keep with that one, especially since my safety spotter "didn't think that something might be delayed a couple seconds in coming down" and didn't see it. Not my supervisor, a park ranger. Go eat a donut!


Like firemen, sometimes we have to wait for a 'fire', polishing the truck in the meanwhile.

 

[Jack]

Great day ... love it when I can save a tree on death row.

I got called out for a removal ... limbed it up, cleared a LOT of vines and undergrowth so I could start work under it ... got my line set & was about to strap on my gaffs ... the HO's happened to show up. I told them: "If it was my tree I'd stop right there ... the tree will be fine once it recovers from the vines.

They said, "Wow, it does look good ... OK." COOL!!!

 

[MasterBlaster]

You talked yourself out of a job?

 

[Jack]

I do that a lot ... it all pays the same